


Blood on My Name

by witchpointe



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band), VIXX
Genre: Dhampirs, M/M, Southern Gothic, Vampires, Witches, use of drugs and alcohol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:33:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29890842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchpointe/pseuds/witchpointe
Summary: When a disgraced angel's malice falls from heaven into a swamp, both Hongbin and Taekwoon feels its effects.Taekwoon, born from the swamp, feels the sickness tainting their home in their bones, but due to the enchanted nature of the dense marshland, they can't find or comprehend the source.Hongbin, a simple psychic, is plagued with nightmares from the point of view of the angel: sick, dying, and screaming for help. Hongbin's abilities lead him to the swamp, where 5VIXX reside.There, Hongbin finds new reluctant friends: Hakyeon, death incarnate, eerily genteel, Taekwoon, nervous and subdued as the malady poisons them, and Sanghyuk, a provocateur hiding his desperation behind a cavalier smile.The other two seem much more complicated. Jaehwan, seductive and goofy in turns, who can't seem to keep his hands to himself, and Wonshik, unassuming and kind, who guides Hongbin with patience through his prophetic dreams until they begin to make sense.As they prepare to find and remove the celestial virus, agitated swamp creatures assault their sanctuary and force Sanghyuk to reveal his hand: an obscene display of powerful blood magic that comes at a price none of witches are willing to pay.
Relationships: Cha Hakyeon | N/Han Sanghyuk | Hyuk, Cha Hakyeon | N/Han Sanghyuk | Hyuk/Jung Taekwoon | Leo, Cha Hakyeon | N/Jung Taekwoon | Leo, Han Sanghyuk | Hyuk/Jung Taekwoon | Leo, Kim Wonshik | Ravi/Lee Hongbin, Kim Wonshik | Ravi/Lee Hongbin/Lee Jaehwan | Ken, Kim Wonshik | Ravi/Lee Jaehwan | Ken, Lee Hongbin/Lee Jaehwan | Ken
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Blood on My Name

**Author's Note:**

> this world has been inhabiting my brain for almost an entire year and i felt like it was the right time to let it out. it's only about a quarter written, but fully outlined. i have no promises of a consistent update schedule, but i've decided that writing and revealing things chapter by chapter is much more fun and motivating for me.
> 
> taekwoon is explicitly afab non-binary in this fic and their pronouns are they/them.
> 
> this is primarily a vixx-centric fic, but the a.c.e boys do play a large role in the later half of the story, although junhee is the only point-of-view character. for that reason i've tagged their characters but not the ships, because i don't want to clog their ship tags with work that isn't really about them. that being said, donghun/junhee and sehyoon/byeongkwan is featured, although there is no specific shippy content.

Falling, falling, falling. Not the fast and dangerous fall from a great height, but a pitched floating descent. He’s wrapped in something gauzy and thin, and can see through the regulated holes in the fabric that the space around him is a plush reddish-orange, tinted light and bright. There is nothing of shape or substance. He’s floating down, deeper into the void of orange blood.

Remorse is heavy in his heart. A guilty pain unlike anything he’s ever felt, cutting deep at an angle against muscle and bone. He’s never experienced emotion this intensely, this viscerally. He tries to move his arms and then his legs, an attempt to grab something perhaps, to break his fall. His body doesn’t cooperate. His arms are crossed over his chest like old corpses in old movies, and his shoulder blades blaze with an empty pain, dual holes in his back that whisper _traitor, traitor_.

Tears gather in his eyes, fall from his cheeks with the added help of velocity. They taste bitter like coffee and dark like being alone. Abandoned. A sob wracks his body and then he hits the surface of the water, plunged into a different, heavier kind of depth. He realizes he’s screaming, he has been all along, but now the water dampens and gargles the sound.

Atmosphere blooms around him, bloated with life and wretched with decay, and absolutely soaked in the crisp, sweet smell of magic. The wildlife flees from his presence, he can feel the panic that follows his arrival. His back finally hits something to stop his fall, shifting and soft, but holds his weight. His struggle only manages to flip his body, burying his face in the shifting sand. The grains irritate his teeth and gums, yet still, he screams.

Hongbin jolts awake.

His body is stiff and sore from clenched muscles, and he clasps his hand over his mouth when he realizes that he is, in fact, actually screaming. Shaking, he blinks the remains of the nightmare from his eyes and lets his memories filter back into his consciousness like steeping tea. He had worked until seven. Walked home in the soft, humid morning light, shed his clothes at the door and crawled into bed. The bedside lamp was left on. It still smells like fermented cabbage and eggs, his breakfast-dinner.

Pounding against the back of his eyes, his heartbeat is fast and loud. His skin sticks to his cheap sheets with sweat, and it feels altogether too hot for September, but he supposes Louisiana is a different kind of hot than New Mexico. Thoughts of home, his true home, ground him a little in the moment. He misses the desert. The warm, dry heat like a blanket. Not this oppression of sweat.

Wiping his wet palms on the bed, he sits up and grunts, runs his hands along his face and pushes in at his temples. He hears his mother’s voice, unwanted and unbidden, bounce around his head like a broken record. _You don’t have to suffer from the dreams. They’re a conversation, Binnie, a compass. You have a very special gift._

And then his father’s voice, soft and low and bone-chilling, drowning out anything his wife had ever said: _You’re a disaster. A shitty, rotten imitation of her. It shoulda been you, boy, not my angel._

Hongbin shoves himself from the oppressive heat of the bed, over the rough carpet and to his desk, several steps too many away on his unsteady legs with uncooperative knees. He shoves yesterday’s clothes off the chair, kicks his shoes away and sits down, wincing at the pain of bending his legs. The little orange bottle is first, the same routine as always. Four round tablets of alprazolam, three more than the recommended dosage, two too many. He washes them down with leftover stale water.

He stays slumped against the chair, echoes of the nightmare and his childhood vying for control of his attention until his world curls around the edges, softening, bleeding out like watercolor on an empty page. He closes his eyes and focuses on the way he’s floating, swaying, like being rocked to sleep in a cradle. He wants to sleep again. It’s unusually early for him.

But that would be a terrible idea, to invite another nightmare. And a waste of medicine, besides. The time on his phone tells him it’s far too early to go to work, but that doesn’t mean he has to stay at home. He _can’t_ stay at home. The beige color of the walls makes him sick, the dirty yellow lamplight makes him want to punch through the plaster. So reminiscent of things better left forgotten.

No, he can’t stay home, but that doesn’t mean he has to suffer here, alone and quiet. Abandoned.

He dresses quickly, in clothes already worn but that don’t smell too much of sweat or other people. The residual memory of the day he’d previously worn them crawls over his skin like water searching for a hole to escape into. He won’t let it in, he can’t, not because the day was bad _—_ he’s sure it was rather boring, all things considered, but because he’s tired of everything being a trigger, of never feeling in the moment. Always in the future, or the past.

His guitar is next, and then his phone slipped into his jeans. He leaves the light on because he can’t be bothered to care about it, and doesn’t particularly feel like coming home to darkness, besides. He needs loud noises and crashy music, obnoxious tourists, the dreamy smell of seafood and spices, the wretched smell of piss.

He needs the distraction only New Orleans can provide.

✡✡✡

New Orleans is blessedly, wretchedly alive, any time of day or night, whether you like it or not. The cobblestone streets clatter with tourists ogling the old architecture, the cemeteries, the locals, everything just a bit this side of normal, odd in an intriguing and wondrous way that often begs the phrase, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Hongbin, for all his city’s faults, loves it here. Bourbon Street smells like piss, Cajuns are loud, he doesn’t like seafood. It’s all a little brash and jumbled, like opening a brightly colored puzzle box and looking at the daunting task of fitting a million unique pieces together. But at the end of the day, everything does make a whole.

He likes the buskers the most. The city is alive with music, all the time, everywhere, melody follows him from his apartment to the store, to his work, to any place he might haphazardly wander trying to clear his mind. It’s _good_ music, too, none of that honky-tonk nonsense from his home, but bluesy bass and enchanting saxophone. New Orleans has _soul_ , a life of its own, breathes musicians in and holds them warm in its chest.

He plays guitar sometimes, on strategic streets with enough locals and just enough tourists to actually make money, on days when his gift doesn’t overwhelm him. He plucks “Ain’t No Sunshine,” into his guitar and sings in his deep baritone, a gift he’s altogether much happier to have than his other. People like his voice. They say it’s rich and deep, describe it like they might a cup of Cafe du Monde, though the locals know that’s far from the best place to get coffee.

At _night_ though. Night is when she truly shines, the silver light of the moon illuminating the brass instruments and their players’ dark skin. Under the cover of darkness she blooms like an evening primrose, and yes, Hongbin feels when the spirits rise as well. He doesn’t mind them. He quite likes most of them, in fact. They’re a preferable companion to most humans, their energy lingering quiet and unobtrusive, curious but reserved. A little sad. But who isn’t?

Hongbin pays for his coffee, swipes his card through the reader well aware that he’s spending needlessly when less than a hundred dollars is left in his account. He doesn’t get paid for another week, can’t rely on tips from customers even when he reads their mind and changes their life. He shrugs to himself, thanks the sharp young barista with stark white teeth against a dark brown smile, and supposes he can busk his way through food for next week. It wouldn’t be the first time. It won’t be the last.

Part of him likes the struggle; part of him feels secure in the insecurity, in the challenge of scraping by, in the independence that he’s doing it all on his own. He’s lonely, yes, wishes he had a partner, parents that loved him, a place to return home for Christmas every year to be showered with love. But it isn’t the worst thing in the world. He has co-workers and customers he enjoys. He’d rather have no family than have his father still be alive. He misses his mother, but feels her still sometimes, though he often wonders whether he _really_ feels her or if he just _—_ wants to, remembers her so hard that he smells her soap and hears her voice, falls gooey at the core like a chocolate covered cherry when he remembers the way she’d braid her hair and smile.

He’ll never return to New Mexico. As much as he likes the desert heat, he doesn’t like the desert itself, and, well, almost anything is boring compared to the big easy. He thinks maybe he’d like New York, too, but he’s never been there, only seen it in sitcom sketches and heard it in strangers’ conversations. It seems faster, brighter, perhaps a bit colder, definitely in temperature but also in temperance. He’d like to walk the streets and feel its age, reach out for the lost and the fallen, listen to the whispering voices no one else can hear.

Would they be louder in New York? Or would they speak to him the same way they do here, syllables curling around the edge of sentences, easy cadence and vocabulary, falling into the way they have all the time in the world. They don’t live, they’ve already died. They watch, they wait. They tell him secrets both magical and mundane, and play simple tricks on him that make him smile with the confidential fact that death isn’t the end. Yes, it’s true, his gift isn’t wholly terrible.

But it is a royal pain in his ass.

The night begins the way it usually does: he hears the obnoxious cross-talk of every inhabitant of the apartment building above his workplace. Too many to single any one voice out, and none of them are yelling on this night, which he guesses is a plus. Someone is running a bath. Another person is laughing a little too loud at their television. Ah, there it is, a yell, a mother rightfully reprimanding her child to quiet down.

He blinks at the sign outside the shop, sips his plain black coffee as he considers the text. ʜᴇx. ᴏʟᴅ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴡɪᴛᴄʜᴇʀʏ. ᴀᴜᴛʜᴇɴᴛɪᴄ ᴡɪᴛᴄʜᴄʀᴀғᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴏᴏᴅᴏᴏ. ᴄᴀsᴛ ᴀ sᴘᴇʟʟ ᴀᴛ ᴏᴜʀ ᴡɪᴛᴄʜᴇs ᴀʟᴛᴀʀ! ᴘsʏᴄʜɪᴄ ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢs ᴀᴠᴀɪʟᴀʙʟᴇ; ɪɴǫᴜɪʀᴇ ɪɴsɪᴅᴇ.

Yes, Rose is an authentic witch, a practitioner of hoodoo, a real witch handed down her craft from generations of elders. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t bullshit her way through half of her customer interactions, just like he does. Ah, white people.

He follows one of those particular clueless white tourists inside, standing momentarily to watch Rose greet him at the counter, and for him to promptly return a cringey, “Howdy!”

Hongbin wanders over to the crystal section, the far left corner of the store, leaving Rose to work her magic on the poor sap. Once he’s surrounded by the clumps of pinging rock, he closes his eyes and sighs, downs the rest of his coffee. It’s so very peaceful here, surrounded by crystal energy. They all vibrate at slightly different tones, but the feeling is tight and constant, so solid and so peaceful in a way that no other energy is. It’s like being sunk into a warm bath, perfectly body temperature, so that he both feels his body and drains into the water, numb. The shaking rocks drown out all else, every spirit, every human, every sound he might hear from the residents above. Only the crystals speaking to him, saying nothing, saying everything.

Reluctantly he leaves the crystal sanctuary, returns to the front of the store and enters the tarot booth, across the aisle from Rose’s counter. She gives him a knowing smile.

“Mornin’ sunshine."

He yawns in response. “How was the day?”

“Same as ever.” She shrugs, gathers her braids over one shoulder. “What’s your schedule?”

He plops his planner onto the counter, its fall broken by the velvet navy reading cloth, dotted with golden stars. Flipping through the pages, he finds today’s date. September already, he thinks. He hardly remembers the year. Every day so much like the last, blending together in a numb cocktail of reading cards and bad dreams. He sighs.

“I’ve got a regular at ten and another at eleven. Other than that I’m wide open.”

Rose nods. “Gonna be a busy night, I think.”

As she says it, another gaggle of people enter the parted wooden doors, and she turns her attention to cheerily greeting them and giving them a tour of the shop. It’s just as well. Hongbin likes Rose, considers her a friend, (made out with her once, on New Years, when they were both drunk and lonely) but doesn’t particularly want to talk to anyone right now, all things considered. Those things being his nightmares. Falling, falling, holes in his back like cattle brands. The feeling of regret and pain like drowning, his lungs full of it. No, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Which is unfortunate, because he has to talk to people in order to get paid.

His regular at ten is a nice enough way to ease into the evening. She’s elderly, and rather cute, talks slow as molasses and sweet as honey, calls him “darlin” and tips him well. The other regular is a bit grating on his nerves _—_ he’s not sure the man believes in tarot or psychics, and yet he comes once per week, on the regular. Hongbin has half a mind that he only comes to complain about his problems, as if Hongbin is some kind of discount therapist, and he never truly gets a good vibration from him. He’s self-centered and classist, looks down his nose at Hongbin like he’s beneath him, even as he pays him to get read. It’s obnoxious. But Hongbin grins with his shark teeth and tells the man what he wants to hear _—_ what he _wants_ to hear, not the whole truth _—_ and the man leaves easily enough, without tipping, of course. The rich ones rarely do.

It’s after midnight when he gets a walk-in client, a shy-tempered woman, probably his age or younger. She’s alone, asks if he’s available for a reading with a blush high on her cheeks, and introduces herself as Lacey. She’s southern, but likely not local. Cute, he thinks. But her aura feels walled and he has a difficult time reading her _—_ it’s likely she’s some type of witch herself, practices psychic shielding on the regular.

He welcomes her behind the counter, ushers her into the reading chair opposite his own. He’s chosen the very bland Rider-Waite deck for tonight, something about the boring and quiet symbolism feeling right when he’s already so overwhelmed. It’s a bland meal of unflavored grits and boiled chicken, when his taste buds are already too overwhelmed with his nightmares leaving such an awful taste in his mouth.

“Any questions in particular?” he asks, shuffling the cards a bit awkwardly. The deck is a little big for his hands. “Or just wanna go with the flow?”

She taps her fingers to her lips as she speaks. “I don’t got a specific question. But I’d like to focus on work. Been having trouble lately.”

Cryptic, maybe, or just a bit obtrusive. He thinks she might be challenging him behind her soft exterior, daring him to show her that he’s not a fraud slinging cards for aesthetics, for unsuspecting tourists. He laughs to himself. If you only knew, honey, he thinks.

He asks her to cut the cards into six piles. He likes the number six better than three. It’s even, for starters.

He asks which pile she feels should be on top, then collects the rest to sit underneath. Then he sits, eyes closed, hand hovering over the deck. It’s a show, and if she’s a witch she likely knows it, but he’s too practiced in his performance to do anything else. The excessive motions are almost like a ritual, now.

He pings her personal bubble, and surprisingly, she lets him in. He wonders whether it’s intentional or not. Her thoughts easily go to her job, her career, he doesn’t even have to guide her. She’s a singer, a good one, at least she thinks so _—_ he can see her singing, but can’t hear it. The audience seems to tolerate her, anyway. But she’s crammed onto a tiny stage with hardly enough room for her backing band, in a dim bar where no one’s really paying attention. And now, she’s on a street corner, it’s not NOLA _—_ he can tell from the paved tarmac and structured sidewalk _—_ and the passersby smile at her, but they don’t stop to listen. And that’s what she wants, to be listened to. To affect someone with her music so deeply that they can’t help but stop and listen, entranced.

Three cards are suitable, he decides, and lies them face down between them.

“Have you ever had your cards read before?” he asks.

She shakes her head, making her cute bob and dangly earrings sway. “No. Not by anyone else.”

“By yourself?”

Reading for a fellow reader is not the easiest, he laments. The cards can mean many different things to many different people, especially when they only want to hear what they want to hear. And for some reason, he wants to tell her the truth, regardless of what she wants to hear. Maybe it’s because he knows she won’t be a regular, or maybe it’s because he sympathizes with wanting to be heard when no one’s around to listen.

“Yeah. Sort of. I’ve dabbled. I don’t really understand it though, the meanings. They seem so wide open, able to be interpreted in any way you want. I never know when they’re telling me yes or no.”

He nods, understanding. It’s easier for him, the cards merely street signs on his way to navigating someone else’s subconscious. Without true psychic ability, he wonders how others manage.

He flips over the cards. The four of pentacles, reversed. The Hanged Man, reversed. The two of swords. Hmm. Not much heart in this reading. Clearly, heart isn’t what she’s missing. Determination, passion, it’s all there, he can feel it. What she lacks is _—_ mental.

“All right,” he says, after pushing the cards around so they’re perfectly aligned. “Are you sure you don’t have any particular concerns? I’m just going to freeball it if not.”

“That’s fine,” she says. “I’m interested in what you have to say.”

He frowns, a little. You might not be, he thinks, but he continues anyway. The truth, that’s what she needs.

He taps his fingers on The Hanged Man. “You’re very confused about your future, that’s for sure. Not about what you want, but about how to get there. You’re not sure you can. You lack confidence in yourself. Not your ability to sing, but in your ability to touch people. Because that’s what you really want.”

She blinks, wide-eyed. “I didn’t tell you I was a musician…”

Hongbin grins, touches his temple with his forefinger. “Didn’t you see the sign? I’m a psychic.”

“Yeah, but…” she shakes her head. “Most aren’t _—_ never mind. You’re right, about it all. Please continue.”

“You’re too hesitant about your career, too timid to make a decision in case it’s the wrong one. But that’s keeping you in stasis. You won’t go anywhere if you don’t take any chances. Even the wrong decision moves you forward.”

He takes the two of swords, rests it so it overlaps The Hanged Man. “Yeah, you’re definitely avoiding decisions. They’re difficult decisions, absolutely. But they need to be made.”

He pings her again, but she’s more closed off this time, likely out of unconscious surprise that he’s not a fraud than anything purposeful. Still, he weeds out a decision about money, a decision about moving. An argument. A man, angry at her. A man, preventing her from stepping forward.

“Who is he?” he asks. “The man that’s holding you back. A boyfriend? Your father?”

She chews on her thumbnail. “Yeah, it’s daddy. He don’t think I can make it, wants me to get a real job, go to college. It was a chance he never got, so he’s upset that I ain’t taking it.”

Typical. He moves the four of pentacles as well, overlapping The Hanged Man on the other side. “You got money problems. What is it: spending too much or not having enough?”

She laughs, but it’s bitter. “I ain’t got no money to spend too much. I ain’t got the money to do what I want. That’s the problem.”

“Ain’t it always,” he agrees. “Still, whatever decision you’re trying to make _—_ I think it’s the right one. He’s holding you back out of selfishness, and you’re letting it happen in part because you’re scared of failure. But if you don’t take the leap, how will you know whether or not you can fly?”

“And if I fall flat on my face?” she asks.

“Then you pick yourself up and try again. You’re old enough to know this. That’s your problem, you think so much about the fall that it’s inevitable.”

“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I guess.”

“The cards don’t lie, Lacey.” He spreads them out again with his fingers. “This is a positive reading, even if you don’t feel it. Your dream is out there. You just have to make some difficult decisions first, piss off a few people.”

There’s a strange bitterness sitting in his belly at that. She has a dream, a purpose in life. What does he have? A collection of divination tools, a gift that feels like a curse, perpetual nightmares. An endless life of helping others find happiness but destined to linger in the dark corners of his lonely apartment. He doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t want anything. He wants to be born again, to start over with a father that cares, a mother that doesn’t leave him when he needs her most, and a brain that works normally.

Lacey nods solemnly. She understands, he can feel it. But he isn’t sure she’s going to take the leap. Her fear and her need to please people _—daddy_ , especially _—_ still lingers in the forefront of her mind. A pity. What he wouldn’t give for the _option_ to leave his father behind and pursue a dream that he had passion for.

She looks up at him. “I suppose that’s it, then.”

“Is it not the answer you were looking for?”

Shrugging, she stands and pushes the chair back under the table neatly. “It just isn’t what I wanted to hear, I guess.”

He smiles, a half-faced grimace that he tries not to level at her. The cards never tell you what you _want_ to hear. She really must not have spent much time with them.

“It never is.”

“Thank you.” To his surprise, she sounds like she means it. “I appreciate it. You ain’t a fraud, you know. I wasn’t planning on getting my cards read, just wandered over here and saw the sign. Felt right to do it.”

He collects the cards together and gives them a quick shuffle. “You’re already listening to your intuition. That’s important.”

She gives him a shy little smile. “How much do I owe you?”

“It’s $20 for a shorter reading like this.”

“Ah, you don’t charge enough.” She pulls out _two_ twenties and hands them over, but he gestures to the table and she sets them down there. “You got real skill, you shouldn’t be selling yourself short.”

He snorts. “I start charging 40 per reading, and I’ll lose half my regulars.”

“Typical.” She tucks some hair behind her ear. “I don’t reckon you do video or email readings? You’re _—_ I’d like to see you again, but I ain’t from around here.”

He frowns. It’s not something he’s ever considered, but it’s doable. “I could manage it. Let me give you my number.”

They exchange numbers and she seems to go for a handshake before leaving, but thinks better of it and only gives him a little wave of her hand. He’s thankful; hands are awful. Active. Full of memories and emotions and all of the things he doesn’t have the energy to deal with right now. Or ever, really, but it makes the rent.

He looks at the cash, wary. He has to pick it up eventually, put it in his wallet or maybe just shove it in his jeans to get rid of it quicker. Ugh, he hates cash. If hands are full of memory and feeling, cash is absolutely drowned in it. People hate money. People love money. It’s all caught up in those two little pieces of green paper mocking him from his reading table.

He’s thought about going card-only, but that’d be shooting himself in the foot as a tourist attraction.

Grabbing the cash in his left hand, quickly, he shoves it into his back pocket. Quickly, but not quick enough. Flashes of anger spike in his heart, not his own anger, a deeper anger, something born of love gone wrong and betrayal. He tastes red beans and rice on the tip of his tongue, one of the twenties undoubtedly used to pay for someone’s meal. He smells a sickening wave of a floral perfume and then sees his client pluck the cash from the feeder, from the ATM on Mirabeau Avenue as it spits out a stack of 20s, watches her remove her card and feels the sinking in her stomach as she reads her remaining balance.

He leans a hand onto the reading table. Ugh, he needs water. Where is his bottle?

It’s past four when Rose decides to close the shop this night, earlier than normal. Not altogether a strange occurrence, though weird enough with the busy night that Hongbin raises his eyebrow at her when she flips the sign to read CLOSED and shuts the doors.

She shrugs. “I’m tired.” Wandering over to his counter, she pokes at the glistening athame. “And I want to read for you before we leave.”

“Why would I ever allow you to do that?” 

He’s being bratty, has let her read for him plenty of times. But he would _much_ rather just go home, eat some ramen, and crash into bed. Nightmares and all. Tonight has been… particularly tiring, for some reason. Maybe it was the Ativan. Maybe he’s not used to doing such sincere readings all night. Maybe, _maybe_ , he’s just tired of being alive.

He shakes his head, throws that thought completely out of his mind. He won’t go to that place again, he can’t.

“Because you’ve been off all night. Something’s bothering you.” She barks a laugh at the face he must make, at that. “I’m a psychic too, honey, remember?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. It’s nothing I can’t handle by myself.”

“Reading the cards for yourself is never as effective as someone else doing it. Internal bias gets in the way. That’s rule number one, in case you forgot.”

“Whatever.” He motions toward the break in the counter, where it opens to accept entrance. “Hurry up then. I’m excited for your epiphanies.”

“You’re lucky I like you, bitch.” She leaves the break in the counter open and peruses his card collection against the wall in an old oak bookshelf. Of course she wouldn’t want to use the Rider-Waite. Too boring and “white people” for her tastes. She, predictably, chooses the Dreamwalker Tarot and slides it from the box. Beautiful, creepy, only vaguely symbolic. Heavily Rider-Waite, but much less boring. Always with plenty to say. She pointedly takes a seat in _his_ chair, and gestures toward the client seat.

While he begrudgingly sits, she runs her dark hands over the dark velvet, and he watches in a sort of appreciative awe. Unlike him, she loves to use her hands to absorb the supernatural. Loves to touch others, to peer into their thoughts and lives. Well. She’s an extrovert, for starters. He’ll never understand it, but he appreciates it all the same. Almost feels a pang of jealousy. If that’s what he wanted. It isn’t. He doesn’t want to _like_ his gift. He wants to be rid of it.

Her hands are the same size as his, more slender, and much more graceful. They shuffle the deck with an ease and flourish he’s sure he’ll never achieve, despite doing it far more often than she. Collecting the deck into the center of the table, she eyes him sharply.

“Think about the problem, honey.”

Nightmares. Overwhelming sensory input. Too many voices, too many feelings, none of them his own. Trapped in a weave of gauze. Falling from a great height. Drowning. Pain on his back. Betrayal, the worst kind, the kind you perpetuate for someone you love so dearly that it tears you apart to hurt them. _Traitor, traitor_.

He knows what she wants. Cuts the stack into three piles, the one on the left much smaller, no more than six or seven. She loves doing it by threes, is almost superstitious about the number, thinks maybe he remembers her saying something about the number being important in hoodoo, or to her family in particular.

She collects the stacks into one, and as she’s going to place them, a card falls out of the deck, plain onto the tabletop. She makes a disgruntled sound and wrinkles her nose. He gasps, knowing full well that her poise is unmatched.

“You got a jumper. Looks like the deck really got something to say to you.”

“Doesn’t it always?”

She flips the card, and the art might as well laugh in his face. The nine of swords. A woman, sat upright in bed, head in her hands, almost clutching at her hair. Nine sharp, shiny swords hover around her, pointed directly at her head. A so creepy it’s almost cute spirit hovers above and behind her, its blank eyes speaking volumes about knowing everything and understanding nothing. Its arms are crossed over its chest exactly like his own had been in the nightmare. The entire card is painted in deep shades of cerulean blue contrasted with bright, shocking whites, and the whole thing speaks volumes about the mental distress that the swords portray. It’s a good deck, a smart deck, a trustworthy deck. He hates all of those things right now.

“Oh, fuck off.” 

He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but he’s just _so annoyed_. This card doesn’t _represent_ nightmares, per se, nor does the spirit’s arm positions mean anything in particular. It’s just so fucking spot on. God, he hates the cards sometimes.

“I’m that good, huh?” She grins, then sets two more cards on either side of the nine of swords, one above it, and one below it, with the nine of swords square in the middle of the table. “Anything you wanna tell me before we start?”

“ _’m psychic too, honey, remember_?” He throws her words back at her, but his anger is only at the cards.

She’s used to him; she laughs. “Fine, grumpy bunny, you’re never a challenge, anyway.”

The card above the nine of swords is The Star, reversed. Below, the nine of wands, reversed. Fucking nines.

Rose hums, a frown on her face. “Quite distressed, aren’t we?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

The Star is a beautiful card in this deck. Granted, it’s beautiful in most decks, but there’s a calm depth to this one that Hongbin particularly likes. The woman, the mer-woman, is cast in pearlescent shades of purple, blue, and pink, holding a torso-sized conch shell from which water is being poured, instead of the usual pitcher. The sea is roiling at her feet. On her forehead, The Star shines brightly as an eight pointed light.

The cards might share some meaning across all decks, but this one in particular, with it’s deep sea imagery, speaks of a specific emotionality, the dark star-lit night behind her instead of the usual sunny day speaking of a particular “dark night of the soul.”

She must see him examining it, because she says, “Yeah, I know. Feeling hopeless?”

He shrugs. “Not any more than usual.”

“It’s a lack of faith,” she says.

“I don’t need your gods.”

“Not gods.” She pushes the nine of wands farther toward him. “A lack of faith in yourself. In the world. You feel like the whole world is against you. It’s not.”

“Uh huh.”

“You know what the cards are saying to me, Hongbin? Along with your buzzy ass aura?”

“Isn’t that why we’re here? So you’ll tell me?”

“You’re dead set on the fact that dreams are pointless. So why don’t you follow your nightmares and see where they lead?”

He stares dumbly at her face, at her pierced nose and her neat braids, at the determined look on her face. “What the fuck does that even _mean_?”

“It means you should do something even if it’s wrong.” Gathering back the cards, she knocks on the deck three times and then shuffles three times, returning them to the box. “What is lingering in fear and pain, reliving the past and seeing yourself as a victim of it, getting you?”

“Mental clarity.”

She scoffs. “That spread spoke of anything but mental clarity. Don’t be one of those jerkoffs that ignore good advice.” She sighs. “Why don’t you take a few days off?”

“Because I need money?”

“I’ll still pay you. You won’t get tips, but no one tips well anyway.”

“Why the hell would you give me paid time off?”

She looks a little stricken, at that. “Because you’re more than just my employee. You’re my friend.” She leaves the table, returning the deck to where it had been on the shelf. “Take a three day weekend. Come back next week. Reflect on the spread, do a few of your own. You need this, I can feel it. Just do what I say for once.”

"Whatever," he says, hauling his bag across his body by the wide brown shoulder strap. It tugs on his hair, so he arranges it, wishes he had a ponytail holder. "As long as I'm getting paid."

He lets himself out from behind the counter.

Hongbin is grateful for her kindness, her friendship. She could be a stuffy, insufferable acquaintance that he has to bear the weight of every day. But she isn't; she's a friend. It's just _—_ he won't know what the fuck to do with three days off. The job keeps him busy, keeps him from downing Ativan and whiskey and zoning out on the couch until his sixth sense is numb.

He rubs the feather tattoo on his ankle, a half-subconscious motion. Messenger of the gods. He's doing good work here, as insignificant as it feels. He likes to think people like Lacey live their lives better because of him. It's the only positivity he allows himself.

What is he going to _do_ with _three days off_?

Exiting the shop, he hears her words again, thrust back into his mind as if she put them there again. She probably did. _Follow your nightmares_.

Yeah, sure. He'll just jump right into a potato sack and dive into the Pontchartrain. Maybe his happiness is at the bottom of the lake, after all.

He wanders home, taking the long way. It's almost five, still nearly two hours before sunrise. He doesn't want to return to his unmade bed and empty kitchen, the chaotic loneliness of living alone yet having perpetual roommates in the form of sights, sounds, smells, _emotions_ from everyone else that lives in the building.

In Jackson Square he sits for a while, the shops he's facing mostly dark, as well as the wrought-iron balconies above them. The streetlamps that flank his bench give off a blue electronic light, glowing off the wet leaves that dot the brick road. It's the quietest part of the night, though NOLA is never really quiet. It's relaxing all the same. He relaxes back, slides down the bench and stretches his legs. His grey hoodie is old and worn but comfortable all the same.

A few shops down a man's spirit lingers against a pillar. He's transparent, staticy, but clear and lucid enough that Hongbin knows that he knows he's dead. That, and the fact that the spirit has been staring at him since he sat down, with a clarity that speaks of understanding who and what Hongbin is.

The confused ones are a lot worse, especially the ones that don't know or understand they're bothering him. Thankfully, this one seems content to stand and watch. Hongbin prods at the spirit's mind gently, not wanting to intrude where he's unwanted, but helplessly curious as to whether the fact that Hongbin can see him makes him feel better or worse.

This one is an open spout, though. Yes, he feels comforted by Hongbin's awareness, but not by much. Because he has blood on his hands, metaphorically but also literally, the transparent tips of his fingers a bright red where he rubs them against the pillar, in vain, as the stain on his hands is irreversible.

Yes, he knows he's dead, but he won't abandon this life. Too afraid of hellfire and damnation, haunted by images of eternal torture and Satan himself.

Hongbin won't interfere. He might be a messenger, but he's not a hero. Doesn't go looking to rescue anyone, doesn't have the energy or stamina besides. Who says the afterlife is better than lingering in undeath, anyway? Yankees, probably.

He takes the stairs to his third floor apartment quickly, foregoing the elevator in order to tire himself out quicker. He stands under the hot water of the shower for almost half an hour, too tired to condition his hair after shampooing, too tired to shave, too tired to even jerk off. Unfortunate, since it would probably help him sleep. He summons the last of the gas in his tank to lather his body and rinse, haphazardly dries himself, then falls into bed without making dinner. Breakfast will come soon enough. He's so _tired_. 

Sleep takes him easily, and he gives in without a fight, despite knowing the nightmarescape that's ahead of him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading ♡ kudos and comments fuel me!!
> 
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